Free Republic

The GOP is slowly releasing the names of speakers for the upcoming convention in Tampa. This week it was announced that former presidential candidate Rick Santorum will address the delegates. Among the other confirmed speakers is former Republican Party presidential candidate U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). As the Republican Party prepares to challenge an incumbent president in November, it needs to have total unity in its ranks. One good way to solidify support from conservatives and Tea Party activists who are lukewarm toward presumptive nominee Mitt Romney is to invite former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to speak at the convention....

On August 2nd, 5 GOP candidates seeking re-election to the Tennessee State legislature discovered just how dangerous it can be to disdain the wishes of those conservatives who helped put them in office. In 2010, members of various Tea Party groups in Tennessee donated the necessary time and money to put Republicans in charge of both the legislature and the governor’s mansion for the first time in 150 years. But after 2 years, not one of the top 10, Tea Party priorities placed before the Republican–controlled legislature had been implemented. Those priorities were based upon “…re-asserting state sovereignty over unconstitutional...

Increasingly our Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan has become a national media darling. Representative Ryan is consistently being promoted on social media networks and by the Republican Party of Wisconsin and the nationwide “free market” group Americans for Prosperity. The fact of the matter is that Congressman Ryan voted with George W. Bush 94% of the time. That’s why Ryan’s 2007 Republican Liberty Caucus Liberty Index score, which ranks members of Congress on their voting record from a constitutional perspective, was 91% on economic issues but only 56% on social issues. In 2006, his score on the Liberty Index was 66%...

JANESVILLE, Wis. (AP) — Even before Wisconsin sent Paul Ryan to Congress, he was meticulously carving a path that seemed to point only upward. As a young Capitol Hill staffer, he impressed Republican lawmakers with his hustle and intellectual curiosity. He blended quickly with an elite crop of conservative thinkers. By his 30s, he was a congressman on his way to becoming a GOP name brand with his push-the-edge budget proposals. Ryan’s climb reached new heights Saturday when Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney announced him as his running mate.

.......[Paul] Ryan has spent much of the past year describing the election in similar terms—not simply as a referendum on Barack Obama’s presidency, but a choice between two competing, and very different, American futures. And Ryan has said he thought Mitt Romney shared that view. Here's how Ryan put it in an interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD on May 3: “It’s very clear from his [Romney's] last three or four speeches – and he’s very involved in writing these, setting this message – that he wants to bring this to a choice. Not just a referendum on Obama’s bad...

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has picked Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan to be his running mate, according to a Republican with knowledge of the development. They will appear together Saturday in Norfolk, Va., at the start of a four-state bus tour to introduce the newly minted GOP ticket to the nation.

We here at Capital Tonight are proud to announce that YNN and NY1 will be hosting a debate between US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Republican challenger Wendy Long. Both candidates have agreed to a live hour long debate at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs on Wednesday, October 17th that will air on both YNN and NY1 reaching almost the entire state. The debate will be co-hosted by our very own Liz Benjamin and by NY1′s Political Anchor Errol Louis. The format will be similar to the one we have used in the past, including the GOP primary debate we did...

Michelle Malkin  In the wake of the horrific Sikh-temple shootings in Wisconsin, left-wing barrel-scrapers are demanding that talk-radio giant Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives apologize for criticizing a 2009 Department of Homeland Security report that hyped an ominous new wave of violent “rightwing extremism.”I don’t apologize. I call foul.The media lowlifes who exploit every tragic shooting to silence their law-abiding, First Amendment–exercising enemies are tearing this country apart. “Progressives” have had free rein to libel and slander peaceful, liberty-loving citizens — while whitewashing the violent plots and criminal behavior of their ideological counterparts. No more.Wade Michael Page was a chronically...

U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young has been in Congress since 1970. That was the last time he faced a Republican opponent in a primary, too. Every Democrat who has tried to unseat him has lost badly. Thanks to his longevity and his savvy at funneling federal money to his district, Young has literally become part of the Tampa Bay landscape, with several government buildings and a 15.5-billion gallon reservoir named after him. Now, for the first time in 42 years, the 81-year-old political veteran is facing Republican opposition. Young has drawn not one but two Republican challengers for Tuesday's primary....

In the wake of the horrific Sikh temple shootings in Wisconsin, left-wing barrel-scrapers are demanding that talk-radio giant Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives apologize for criticizing a 2009 Department of Homeland Security report that hyped an ominous new wave of violent "rightwing extremism." I don't apologize. I call foul. The media lowlifes who exploit every tragic shooting to silence their law-abiding, First Amendment-exercising enemies are tearing this country apart. "Progressives" have had free rein to libel and slander peaceful, liberty-loving citizens -- while whitewashing the violent plots and criminal behavior of their ideological counterparts. No more. Wade Michael Page...

Conservative Republicans who've been working to push GOP moderates out of state legislatures in a large section of the country have scored big victories in Kansas, where a state Senate that has been an obstacle to fiscal and social policy changes is likely to have a solid majority on the right next year. Unlike other states, where results for conservatives have been mixed, Tuesday's primary in Kansas saw voters in GOP races oust seven incumbent moderate senators. An eighth, Senate President Steve Morris, a moderate Hugoton Republican, trailed his conservative opponent, likely marking the end of Morris' 20-year career as...

Imagine Tea Party extremists seizing control of a South Carolina town and the Army being sent in to crush the rebellion. This farcical vision is now part of the discussion in professional military circles. At issue is an article in the respected Small Wars Journal titled “Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A ‘Vision’ of the Future.”

I recently read with joy a conservative blogger’s attempt to connect the TEA party movement to its historic roots; a topic I have been meaning to write about for months now. The blogger rightly said that the “the historical precedent for the TPM wasn’t the Tea Party event in Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773.” I actually uttered an “Amen, brother!” He went on to describe the Continental Association established on October 20, 1774 by the First Continental Congress in response to the Intolerable Acts. That’s when I realized that I have waited long enough to write this article. The...

CBS News Tea Party-backed Rep. Akin wins Missouri GOP Senate primary to take on McCaskill JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Rep. Todd Akin, who played up his tea party credentials and conservative appeal, broke out from a three-way Missouri Republican primary on Tuesday to earn the right to take on Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, setting up one of ...

AUSTIN — Ted Cruz’s surprise victory over the mainstream Republican choice in Texas’ U.S. Senate race shot him from underdog to conservative superstar virtually overnight and made him one of the nation’s most visible limited-government advocates. But don’t call the 41-year-old former Ivy League debating champion a tea party intellectual. “I don’t even know what that means,” a chuckling Cruz told The Associated Press in an interview. ....“There are some in the media that like to portray conservatives as ornery and disagreeable, and I don’t think that’s accurate,” he said. “One can be perfectly civil and agreeable and work together...

Conservative Republicans scored big wins across Kansas on Tuesday as they set themselves up to seize control of the state Senate and clear a path for Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s agenda. Moderates lost in many key Senate races in Tuesday’s GOP primary, including five of six seats that were up for grabs in Johnson County. ---snip--- In outstate Kansas, conservative challengers knocked off Senate President Steve Morris and fellow moderates Roger Reitz, Jean Schodorf and Dwayne Umbarger. Sen. Pete Brungardt was trailing by more than 10 points early today. The races were particularly bitter and expensive as the battle between...

Americans for Prosperity, the Tea Party organization backed by the Koch brothers, is set to begin a $25 million advertising assault aimed at President Obama, its largest effort to date. The ad takes a relatively straightforward approach, avoiding hyperbole or over-the-top negativity. An image of the national debt clock appears on screen for much of the ad, ticking ever higher. It ends with Mr. Obama's words, "If I don't have this done in three years, then there's going to be a one-term proposition."

PARIS — The call to Vincent Grandil’s Paris law firm began like many others that have rolled in recently. On the line was the well-paid chief executive of one of France’s most profitable companies, and he was feeling nervous. President François Hollande is vowing to impose a 75 percent tax on the portion of anyone’s income above a million euros ($1.24 million) a year. “Should I be preparing to leave the country?” the executive asked Mr. Grandil. The lawyer’s counsel: Wait and see. For now, at least. “We’re getting a lot of calls from high earners who are asking whether...

Rare is the Tea Party-tested Republican senator who hangs an image of the Kennedys' Hyannisport home over his desk and shows off the painter's personal inscription. "Orrin," reads the note, scribbled below a cobalt-blue sea. "We'll leave the light on at the compound for you anytime. Ted Kennedy, '91." The beacon of bipartisanship that defined their odd-couple relationship still guides Utah's Orrin Hatch. He didn't advertise it as he wooed and won over the tea partiers who, two years ago, toppled fellow conservative Robert Bennett from his Senate perch. But now, with his state's Senate GOP nomination in hand and...

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus hopes Sarah Palin will speak at the Republican convention in Tampa. “I think a lot of her and hope that she does speak,” Priebus told Greta Van Susteren on Fox News on Monday night. If Palin does speak, she would join other prominent GOP women whose national profiles have risen since Palin was pushed onto the national spotlight after McCain chose her as his running mate. In addition to Rice, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez also will be speaking. Palin told a reporter July 25 from The Tampa Bay Times...